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Author Archives: neil

Because we lack the conventional metrics to define and measure, for example, the hardships of walking, we don’t design and enforce solutions or adopt targeted public policies.

Designers in almost all fields make critical decisions based on their domain knowledge, observable conditions, and of course data. More and more, incredible amounts of finely grained and immediately available (and updated) data is required to be incorporated into product decisions. Given the quantitative nature of some of this data, it is often judged to be unbiased, truthful, and complete. Few people take the time to question the data – not the accuracy per se, but what is (and is not) being measured.

This article highlights the assumptions and challenges urban planners encounter when considering the health of our cities. It also shows how qualitative data can be used to make clear problems that purely quantitative approaches often fail at capturing. Indeed, its hard to imagine the level of instrumentation required to provide the nuance captured in a stroll down a city street.

Probably the best and most polished one yet, John Maeda’s annual report on the state of design in the tech industry is out. There is an emphasis on eduction and a helpful breakdown of the kinds of design that are emerging.

Regrettably another year goes by in which I’ve read more books than I’ve posted posts to this site. That said, some awesome fiction, non-fiction and biographies.

Non-fiction

The Wright BrothersBy David McCullough – great read for anyone interested in product development. The cool intensity with which these men worked to kickstart manned flight is inspiring. Also worth noting the backdrop within which they worked.

Between The World And MeTa-Nehisi Coates – a critical and heart-rending letter from a father to his son, I found this very moving. I hope to see this as required reading in schools.

This has to be one of the clearest articulations of Design Thinking I’ve come across in a while. In the course of talking about moving beyond Design Thinking to something the authors call “intervention”, they do an excellent job of embedding an explanation in the context of how it should be used and built upon.

The principles of this approach are clear and consistent. Intervention is a multistep process—consisting of many small steps, not a few big ones. Along the entire journey interactions with the users of a complex artifact are essential to weeding out bad designs and building confidence in the success of good ones.

Stephen Johnson zeroes in on some of the challenges using the Apple Watch, and specifically the Digital Crown (the main controller for the device, which sits on the side like an analog watch). I don’t own one, nor have I had an opportunity to use one.

Johnson seems to have nailed the problem by observing that there’s no safe place for a user to navigate to and “reset”. For a lot of users, and especially those who are just learning, memorable linear pathways from a consistent starting point are what they want. Like learning a city subway stop by subway stop, once those pathways have been learned, users can branch out and discover new features.

I’m always fascinated by how product decisions get made, and in this case, how Apple may have compromised their usual clarity when it came to defining the behavior of a critical interface element. I don’t know if this anything more than a stumble for Apple, a sign of them letting technological complexity get out of hand and dictate the user experience. It is certainly intentional and on the other hand may reflect a new outlook for how Apple approaches user experiences.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Prof. Robert Thomas’ Collaborative Design For Innovation class at Georgetown University. The curriculum is fantastic – something I could keep studying for a long time – and Robert and his class were welcoming and attentive. Afterwards, one of the students I was speaking with noted that I had listed a number of fiction – science fiction in particular – works in my annual reading list, and asked why.

At the very core of their practice, designers are clearly tasked with imagining the future state of a product or service. Herb Simon said that “The process of design is a continual cycle of generating alternatives and testing to evaluate them.” I’ve always had a fondness for speculative fiction, and it informs my ability to create and iterate solutions by training my mind to think beyond present realities and imagine different ways of doing things, big and small. When I was in graduate school at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design, Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age was required reading. One of the greatest science fiction authors, Arthur C. Clarke, was also credited with inventing a number of significant scientific breakthroughs. In much the same way, I enjoy traveling to different countries where I can experience a significant culture shock.

I highly recommend that designers read science fiction periodically. It doesn’t need to be stereotypical rockets-and-lasers stuff, either: there’s quite a bit of work being produced today that is excellent. I came across a few readings related to this that might be worth digging into for more inspiration:

A good year for fiction, especially of the science variety. I thoroughly enjoyed The Moor’s Account based on both the concept of the book as well as the story itself. I especially enjoy how Ian McEwan paints his characters, and The Children Act did not let me down. The Sixth Extinction was less in depth and more accessible than Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker articles, but the breadth captures the scope of the disaster humans are making of the planet. The Serial podcast was memorable for its storytelling, although it ended up putting a big dent in my reading time.

Fiction

The Children Act
Ian McEwan

The Son
Philipp Meyer

All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr

The Moor’s Account
Laila Lalami

Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel

The Book of Strange New Things
Michel Faber

J
Howard Jacobson

Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn

Tenth of December
George Saunders

On Such a Full Sea
Chang-Rae Lee

Train Dreams: A NovellaDenis Johnson

Non-FictionHow We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World
Steven Johnson